La Petite Four by Regina Scott

[meganbmoore]

A YA regency romance, this is about Emily Southwell, a young lady seeking recognition as a painter. A week before the comeout ball for Emily and her three best friends, where Emily hopes to display her paintings, Emily learns that she is engaged to marry Lord Robert Townsend, a man she despises. Even worse, he plans for them to marry the day before the ball, and then leave town.

It’s YA, so I’ll ignore the bit about a Regency High Society wedding involving the nobility supposedly being pulled off within a week of it being announced.

Emily isn’t going down without a fight, so she and her friends set out to find out what Robert’s really like, only to discover that the woman he supposedly loved died just days before he proposed to Emily, and that he seems to be up to other illegal activities.

This is one of those YA that I kind of wish I’d read at the right age, when I would have thought it was the most exciting and romantic thing ever, especially Emily’s scenes with James Cropper, a mysterious man also investigating Robert. As it is, it was a fun bit of fluff, but not much else. It did make me remember that I have a lot of non-YA Regencies waiting for me to read them, though.

Comments

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

What's the title even supposed to mean? O_o I mean bad french is common in the text, but can't they even keep it away for a freaking title?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I read an ARC (even though the book came out several months ago) so it may have been more clear in the final version. It's obviously meant to refer to the four girls, but I don't remember them ever being calledthat inside.

This is one of those things where I suspect I'm more generous than I should be, because I know how I would have reacted if I'd read it at 13-15. It also would have been one of the things that helped stick an interest in history more permanently in my head.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

hey, I'm only annoyed at this as a french person who's a annoyed at the frequency of french included just to look cool and exotic which writers don't even bother to get right!!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's rather similar to my twitchiness over how all Texans have weird accents, ride horse, are 90 years behind the rest of the US when it comes to technology, and are probably illiterate.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it is, yeah XD

[oxymoronassoc.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a strange title too.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

genre and number, not exactly unimportant in French.

[oxymoronassoc.livejournal.com]

Bad/misused French makes me sad. I'm a French minor at school.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid the title is exactly just that.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

which is not as annoying as if we had to suffer from a long history of institutional imperialism from the Anglophone world, but still a little bit annoying.

May I ask what your icon is from? And is it something want to watch? I love the character design!

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

My icon's of Michiko from Michiko e Hatchin. It might possibly be something you'd like! It's about Michiko, a woman who was framed for murder and sent to prison for it, who breaks out of prison to find the daughter of the man she loved (...and who unfortunately is probably the one who framed her in the first place). It's by the same studio who did Samurai Champloo and the music's by the guy who directed both that and Cowboy Bebop, so if you've seen either of those, you'll get a good idea of the overall feel of the series. (It draws its influences from a 70s exploitation film type style.) It's set in a pseudo-Brazil country and surprisingly enough, there's a good amount of ethnic diversity for an anime and the main characters are all female.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

That does sound like something I want to watch! Loved Cowboy Bebop and thought Samurai Champloo was okay and that's a very intriguing summary, thanks for telling me :D

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Glad to be of service! :)

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Oh, MY. I may need to look into this one YESTERDAY.

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Just wait. I'm test-driving a new series that just started this season (Michiko e Hatchin is from last season, technically, even though it's still airing), which is about a former ballerina who rides a transforming, robotic motorcycle against a backdrop of civil unrest against this crazy militaristic world government!

(Okay, that summary just sounds crazy but the first three episodes have been really good!)

[oxymoronassoc.livejournal.com]

I love Regencies, but the YA ones I find lacking. I like mine with a little action/adventure/mystery, and those are very hard to come by along with decently written and non-retarded characters.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yes. It had the elements of why I read a hundred or so Regencies in college, but didn't do enough with them.

[oxymoronassoc.livejournal.com]

Dude, I need you to rec me some good authors. I have read everything by the people I like. :(

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

IIRC: June Calvin, Emily Hendrickson, Batbara Metzger, Joan Smith, Marion Devon, Laura Matthews, Barbara Hazard, Loretta Chase, Jo Beverley, Edith Layton, Susan Carroll and Carla Kelley were the ones I read a lot of. I haven't read all the books by any and not all were good, but I think those were the main ones.

[rosehiptea.livejournal.com]

I used to read Regencies by the truckload, but never did read the YA ones.

Nor did I really get into other kinds of romances, historical or otherwise. Not sure why.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Regenciews are a little different than most other romances, IMO. This is my first YA regency.